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The spectacular burial place of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert could remain closed for a decade because of the Queen's cash problems.
The Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore, situated within the private Home Park at Windsor, has been shut since autumn 2007 after dampness made the Grade I-listed building unstable.
Chancellor George Osborne admitted it could be a further "five to eight years" before repairs are complete because of a £1million-a-year drop in government cash for repairs to royal buildings.
Frogmore House will open to the public for three days this weekend. But Tory MP Edward Leigh said it was wrong that money saved by the Queen in one area, such as travel, could not be spent on conservation. This will be reversed when the Civil List is replaced with a Sovereign Grant next year.
Victoria built the mausoleum for Albert and it opened in 1862, a year after his death. Her body was interred there after she died in 1901.
A Royal Collection spokeswoman said: "In the next year, temporary gutters and downpipes will be installed and the stonework will be re-pointed to allow the building to start to dry out. When funding is available, a massive scaffold and temporary roof will be erected so that the copper roof can be renewed."
She said the reopening date was dependent on the work's progress.
Reader views (7)
There's something for workshy Princes Andrew and Edward, let them learn a trade by becoming Royal Mausoleum maintenance staff, decorators and when eventually finished, the door man and security guards.
A job for life, looking after their own family's dead.
Andrew in particular could lose that paunch by walking the hundred metres or so from his home the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, to work in the family crypt.
The major problem to this plan is that Prince Edward keeps disappearing, going camping in a tent in each one of the 82 rooms in his ridiculous sized home at Bagshot Park, Surrey. He apparently needs all those rooms to look after his many military uniforms. Sad!
- Concerned Observer, Harrow, 04/08/2011 03:28
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hahaha, i can't believe anyone actually cares!!! if we can't afford to keep it, turf em out and bury em in unmarked paupers graves as so many of her subjects were!!!!
- tom, london, 03/08/2011 21:29
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So the cost of repairs is say a few millions. Cost of the Olympics is a few tens of billions. Some parts of the Olympic programme have made savings of 100s of millions against budget. So, surely it is not beyond the wit of man to transfer some cash from one entity to the other. Given that the Albert Hall and the Victoria & Albert Museum and the surrounding area were developed from the profits of the Great Exhibition, the idea of cross-subsidy is not unknown in this area.
- Mike, London, 03/08/2011 15:14
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We waste billions of pounds on a broken down eu and useless olympics, more on unwanted immigrants and other dole scroungers, and yet, cannot spend a few million on a building of national importance.
- Vince London, West London, 03/08/2011 14:57
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Frogmore is a magnificent place and the Government should simply fix it! Why is our national heritage allowed to decay by successive governments who will sponsor any left wing alternative lifestyle action group but spend nothing to preserce the idendity that is our country !
- Mark, HK, 03/08/2011 14:10
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We pay out millions every day to the freeloaders who have turned up in this country. If we could get a bit better at turfing them out and getting the money back from their country of origin (especially the europeans) this could be paid for in a second.
I'm not a massive fan of most of the royals but Albert and Victoria did a massive amount for this country most of which is still very apparant today. This is a terrible way to repay them.
- Disgusted, London, 03/08/2011 12:27
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Surely all the money she gets from off shore wind farms could pay for it or get rid of some of her freeloading relatives which we pay for indirectly anyway
- anon leicestershire, leicestershire, 03/08/2011 11:40
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